Loral Corporation - Definition and Overview

Loral Corporation was a small Bronx defense contractor on the verge of bankruptcy when in 1972 it was acquired by Bernard Schwartz, who over the course of the next two decades built it into a major player in the global aerospace and defense industry, acquiring sixteen other defense and aerospace companies. In 1996 Loral sold its defense electronics and system integration businesses to Lockheed Martin; its remaining units became became Loral Space & Communications. (The following year, several of those former Loral units were sold by Lockheed Martin to become the core of L-3 Communications.)

History

• 1987. Loral acquires Goodyear Aerospace Corporation, which becomes Loral Defense Systems.
• October 1990. Loral acquires Ford Aerospace & Communications Corp., the divisions of which become Space Systems/Loral and Loral Western Development Labs.
• 1991. With Qualcomm, Loral begins the Globalstar project, and at the peak owns a 42% share in the company.
• 1994. Loral acquires IBM Federal Systems Company, which becomes Loral Federal Systems.
• May 5, 1995. Loral acquires Paramax, the defense unit of Unisys Corp., for $862m in cash.
• January 8, 1996. Lockheed Martin acquires the defense electronics and system integration businesses of Loral Corp. for $9.1 billion. Loral Corp. becomes Loral Space & Communications.

Other acquisitions

• Fairchild-Weston
• LTV Missiles
• Solartron

Other past units

• Loral Aeronutronic (Rancho Santa Margarita, California)
• Loral Command Control Systems
• Loral Conic (San Diego, California)
• Loral Instrumentation (San Diego)
• Loral/Liris
• Loral Rolm Computer Systems (San José, California)
• Loral Space Information Systems
• Loral Space & Range Systems (Sunnyvale, California)
• Loral Terracom (San Diego)
• Loral Vought Systems (Dallas, Texas)